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I spent over two hours waiting for my doctor at my last prenatal appointment. Most of that time was in the tiny exam room, just one chair and a speculum and a rack of pregnancy magazines. Four paces across, in case you’re wondering. Not that I spent 90% of that wait pacing back and forth, feeling trapped in pregnancy jail, wishing I had saved at least one of my snacks beyond the first 10 minutes of that interminable wait.

I flipped through a few of those magazines but quickly went back to pacing the room like a madwoman. What a load of bullshit they are, with headlines like:

Love your partner the whole 9 months

🙄 Right. That’s totally possible.

Gain just enough weight: 6 little secrets that make it simple

Does puking all day count as one of the secrets?

No more jelly belly: lose the baby fat fast

You are definitely not ready for this jelly.

Anyway. While the hangry ramped up with every round trip across the exam room, I started imagining what an honest pregnancy magazine would cover. And then I decided to make one.

What do you think? What’s on YOUR pregnancy magazine cover?

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Guess what, friends? You know how I’ve spent over two years now ranting and occasionally raving about the ups and downs of pregnancy and motherhood? Well, I guess there were enough rewards to convince me to do it again.

Photo: Laura Puzic

That’s right, there’s a baby boy on the way here. Estimated arrival: June 2018.

Guess that means I’ve got a whole bunch of new material to share with you. 😉

Coming up soon: how this first trimester was radically different from last time (but still somehow fell short of the “fun” category).

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Self-care is ALL over the internet these days; seems like every outlet and Instagrammer is finding new ways to meditate and essential oil yourself into serenity.

The movement is getting all sorts of backlash—is it selfish? is it a manifestation of privilege? etc etc—and a lot of those criticisms ring true, but one thing I am appreciating about this renewed focus on chilling the F out is that there are all these new creative ideas coming out about how to chill out … in ways that are more accessible than usual. It’s not just, go on this 3 day luxury wellness retreat and feel restored unto the universe, but also practical stuff like, hey, got 2 minutes? FLOSS. Waiting for the bus? Take some deep breaths already.

Those reminders to take space that already exists in your day and make it into something restorative feel really relevant to me right now. One of my most intense secret fantasies is disappearing for an afternoon to go to the spa. I don’t even want a treatment; I just want to surrender to an infinite loop between hot tub, sauna, and steam room. I imagine coming home and pretending like I had been at work the whole time. What, my skin looks extra buttery and silky? Weird, it must just be my natural glow.

Sounds dreamy, right?

Now that you know my (basic, banal) most secret desire, I feel like I can trust you with my backup plan, my spa treatment that I can implement at home, even while a toddler repeatedly crashes her doll stroller into my ankles.

I recently got to test out one of those super fancy Korean face masks—the kind that cost upward of $100—and see if it gave me the same glow as my annual splurge facial (plus of course the infinity loop of spa facilities).

Here’s the inside of the pretty box: it feels like a luxury item from start to finish.

The Onyx Youth Magnet Mask is magnetic skincare therapy, using the power of magnets to moisturize your skin and reduce signs of aging. (I had no idea magnets could do that, but hey, for those results, sure thing!)

I put this to the test at the exact moment when I’m least likely to feel fabulous: Friday morning, shortly after waking up, after a couple of days of being sick, and going on three days since I last washed my hair. It would take a miracle to make me feel all self-care-refreshed and glowy.

My takeaways:

My Victory Band headband was a champ at keeping my hair out of the way.

The mask is really easy to use. You spread it over your face with the included spatula and it glides on like butter. I appreciated that I didn’t have to get my hands messy to apply it. Even with a few toddler collisions throwing off my balance, I didn’t make a mess.

Mac was not a fan of my new look.

You should not post any internet selfies without context. While I let the mask work its magic (5-10 minutes), I got Mac to take some selfies with me. She was a little suspicious of my new look, and kept saying, “Mama take face OFF!” I appreciated that it was a quick process—just a few minutes of marination during which my toddler was extremely wary of my face. I also suspect that if I had posted this look on in the internet, sans explanation, it would have been too easy to misinterpret what I was up to.

Taking it off is really easy, too. The included magnetic wand is kind of magic; it grabs onto the mask with no effort on your part, and even as the mask piles up onto the wand, it still continues working. You look at the collected mask and think sure you’re going to start rubbing it back on your face, but thanks to the power of SCIENCE, it just keeps removing more and more mask.

I did have to touch up a few spots with a washcloth: I found that the wand couldn’t quite maneuver into tiny crevices like around my nose, but that was a minor issue and so easy to just spot-finish.

I got the glow! Here I am, all dewy and super-moisturized, immediately after removing the mask. My bathroom light is pretty substandard, but my skin looked as dewy and glowy as if I’d just had a legit spa treatment.

You get more than I realized for the money. For some (unfounded) reason, I assumed this was a single-use product, which made that $110 price tag even more fancy. But, there was a ton of product left after I finished.

Ugly photo, but you get the point.

I can (and will) keep using this for a quick, self-care touch up when I’m feeling most bedraggled or dehydrated.

It’s on sale right now! If you want to try it yourself, or, if there’s someone you want to give a super luxe gift to (this would work great as a gift; it’s such a beautiful experience, the packaging and branding make it feel really luxurious and special), you can use the code BEMAGNETIC for 20% off here.

I received the Onyx Youth Magnet Mask for free—thank you Onyx for the opportunity! As always, all opinions are my own. 🙂

p.s. Speaking of beauty—if you’re the kind of person who, like me, has failed spectacularly at replicating makeup tutorials on Youtube, here’s a channel that upends the whole genre. By far my favorite thing on the internet recently. Enjoy!

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I participated in a turkey trot on Thanksgiving, like I’ve done for the last eight years, but this year was different. In past years, I’ve gone with family, and our entourage is always replete with strollers and babies and grandparents and a pack of dogs. Our trot is more of a stroll; I usually sip coffee the whole way and we’re habitually at the back of the pack.

This year was different. I ran a 5-mile Turkey Trot with friends. (Well, they actually ran way faster than me, so I did most of it with temporary, pace-matched buddies from among the thousands who participated.

As I was running, I overheard snippets of conversations from the walkers I passed. Words like “I wish I were a runner, but…” or “I just can’t get into running…” or “Running just isn’t something I enjoy …”. I didn’t hear the tail end of any of those sentences but I didn’t need to, because they’re all sentiments I’ve spoken, many a time, during many a 5K stroll or while cheering at many a finish line for friends’ races.

I still don’t consider myself a runner. My ‘running’ happens in fits and starts and is punctuated by momentary highs, rookie mistakes. and lapses of activity. I’m slow. I still take walk breaks and I don’t really see my leisurely pace as something that needs a fix or an upgrade. But I’m beyond proud of myself for running those five miles on Thursday, and beyond grateful that I was able to.

During the moments when I ran alone, I kept thinking about my grandma, who passed away just a year and a half ago, and who had lost her mobility, slowly and begrudgingly, over the course of 30-some years. She was a fighter and resisted her loss of mobility longer than most humans would have endured. She never complained or let herself wallow in self-pity. She was always her witty, sharp self up until the end.

Though she never spoke to me about her feelings about being disabled, I have no doubt that she would have jumped at the chance to be able to walk or run even a few steps. And in her honor I was grateful to join the thousands of runners and walkers and babies in strollers and families in our course around downtown Austin on the most perfect, clear, sunny day, and relish the opportunity I have to move in any way I choose.

I actually didn’t get a time for this race – my chip never picked up any activity (??) but I swear, I did the whole thing!

Even if I don’t really like running. Even if I’m not a runner. Even if my friend’s dad who power-walked the course finished just 10 minutes after I did. (No joke, he’s a machine). No matter what, I’m so glad that I can choose to run. That walking or running is available to me, and that I’m no longer the person offering the “I would like to be a runner…” excuse.

Wait, there's more!

The night before Sunday’s devastating church massacre, I learned a parenting lesson that I never would have thought to seek out on my own.

I was sitting around a dinner table with parent friends whose kids are a few years older, chatting about the ins and outs of slumber parties, when the subject of weapons in the home came up. I’m so grateful the conversation landed on this topic because it never would have occurred to my oblivious California-bred self that one of the pre-screening questions for playdates or slumber parties, at least in my neck of the woods, needs to address whether there are weapons in the home.

And not just that question; it’s a good start, but it can’t stand alone. Instead, it’s a conversation that needs to be primed and carefully managed to make sure you feel comfortable sending your kids to another home, and to also make sure potential guests are comfortable in your home. Here’s what I learned:

“Do you have guns?” can be interpreted lots of ways

This sounds so crazy to me, but people will answer “No” to the question “Do you have guns” because they don’t have, for example, a gun case with 50 rifles, or they don’t consider themselves collectors or hobbyists. That doesn’t mean that they don’t have a handgun in their bedside table or another gun in their truck for hunting. Instead of saying, “Do you have guns?” ask “Do you have weapons in your home?” The question is (hopefully) broad enough to remind them of the various types of weapons that may be stored somewhere on their property.

Start the conversation yourself.

Asking about guns in someone’s home can be a potential landmine, especially in a region where people have strong opinions about their arms and their rights. The consensus around the table was to bring it up yourself, by offering something like:

“Would so and so like to come over for a playdate? So that you know, we do have guns in our home that are unloaded and locked in a safe in the garage.”

Of course that’s a simplified script, but by proactively offering the information yourself, it opens to door to ask in return without putting the other family on guard.

If you don’t have weapons in the home, my friends recommended not saying “we have no weapons,” but instead starting the conversation by saying, “How do you store your guns?” That way, you don’t risk making gun owners feel judged, or that you might not green light a playdate if their answer is different from yours. Of course, non-gun-owners can just say, “Oh, we don’t have any.”

Don’t ask “Are they stored safely?”

Instead, ask, “How are they stored?” The definition of safely stored varies, from “oh, we just keep the one in our bedside table, it’s loaded, but that drawer is so hard to open, no kid will succeed,” all the way to, “we keep guns unloaded and locked in a safe in the garage, and ammunition in a separate, locked safe with a different password.”

Terrifying set of questions to ask, isn’t it? I admit I was completely in the dark before this weekend about just how fraught and necessary this conversation is for potential playdates.

The next morning, it felt so timely, in the worst possible way. Sunday’s massacre was horrifying, with the chilling bonus of being just down the road from us. And most horrifying of all is just how routine this kind of news is beginning to feel, from the initial reports of a mass casualty event, to the predictability of how it will be interpreted and spun by our leaders and media. We can fill in the blanks of the narrative with just with a few variables: what color was the shooter’s skin? What color and religion were his victims?

From there, the story just falls into place, and we begin screaming at each other over semantics—what kind of gun was used, whether it was legally obtained, whether he’s a terrorist, whether it was mental health to blame, whether the good guys with guns stepped in fast enough, whether now is the right time to address policy changes. Those deeply felt arguments, shouted into the algorithmic void, are just as rote as the mass shootings that keep happening, again and again.

I find the conversations happening online mortifying. How easily our leaders regurgitate the same anodyne statements that do nothing to help and nothing to prevent. How adeptly the reactionary public contorts a tragedy to support its own world views. How quickly we spread memes and misinformation to blame, vilify, retrench.

What kind of sick culture uses a community losing nearly 10% of its population as a catalyst for more violence against our neighbors?

Why can’t we all concede that we have a problem with gun violence in America? That acknowledgment does not invalidate your strongly held beliefs on gun ownership or gun control or masculinity or mental health or immigration or hate crimes or politics or anything else, other than that we have a gun violence problem in America.

You can remain pro-2nd Amendment and still recognize that this epidemic of tragedies is surely not what our Founding Fathers intended.

You can be pro gun control and still engage in pragmatic and productive conversations about how to stem this tide of violence.